Health risks of heavy metals in contaminated soils and food crops irrigated with wastewater in Beijing, China.

By S. Khan, Qing Cao, Ying-juan Zheng, Youda Huang, Yong-guan Zhu. Environmental Pollution, 2008

2,418 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Consumption of food crops contaminated with heavy metals is a major food chain route for human exposure. We studied the health risks of heavy metals in contaminated food crops irrigated with wastewater. Results indicate that there is a substantial buildup of heavy metals in wastewater-irrigated soils, collected from Beijing, China. Heavy metal concentrations in plants grown in wastewater-irrigated soils were significantly higher (P<or=0.001) than in plants grown in the reference soil, and exceeded the permissible limits set by the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) in China and the World Health Organization (WHO). Furthermore, this study highlights that both adults and children consuming food crops grown in wastewater-irrigated soils ingest significant amount of the metals studied. However, health risk index values of less than 1 indicate a relative absence of health risks associated with the ingestion of contaminated vegetables.

Subfields: Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Pollution

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0cfaade8207263de12420c0016a1d465d9c74526

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Citations in the corpus

Wastewater: Economic Asset in an Urbanizing World (2015, background): “2008), soil and groundwater resources (Walker and Lin 2008; Khan et al. 2008), and the natural and built infrastructure (Rong-guang et al.”
Transfer of heavy metals through terrestrial food webs: a review (2015, background): “Furthermore, repeated applications of wastewater to agricultural land may also cause heavy metals to build up in soils, with the potential for metals to leach into the soil solution and groundwater (Scott et al. 2004; Chary et al. 2008; Khan et al. 2008).”
Biosorption of Water Pollutants by Fungal Pellets (2020, background): “The first includes soil erosion, volcanic activities, weathering of rocks and minerals [25], while the main anthropogenic sources are paints and pigments, plastic stabilizers, electroplating, incineration of cadmium-containing plastics, and phosphate fertilizers for Cd [27,28]; tanneries and steel i”
Impacts of soil and water pollution on food safety and health risks in China. (2015, background): “In a study of soils and food crops in Beijing, heavy metal concentrations in plants grown in wastewater-irrigated soils were significantly higher than in plants grown in reference soils, with the concentrations of Cd and Cr exceeding MEP limits in all plant samples (Khan et al., 2008).”
Soil contamination with cadmium, consequences and remediation using organic amendments. (2017, neutral): “…45 5.54 Lettuce 0.213 0.0384 Kachenko and Singh (2006) Spinach 0.361 0.065 0.80–2.58 Lettuce 0.40–0.91 0.5 Khan et al. (2008a) 0.84 Spinach 0.52 0.619 Khan et al. (2008b) Lettuce 0.9 1.07 0.67 Spinach 0.20 0.29 Bigdeli and Seilsepour (2008) Tomato 0.01 0.014 3 Lettuce 0.27 0.09 Zhuang et al.…”
Competing uses for China's straw: the economic and carbon abatement potential of biochar (2015, background): “Whether Chinese policy makers provide financial support to the advancement of pyrolysis technology is likely to depend on the outcomes of biochar trials related to land remediation [currently a significant issue in China (Chen, 2007; Khan et al., 2008; Bian et al., 2013)] and to BMCCs for food produ”
Heavy Metals in Contaminated Soils: A Review of Sources, Chemistry, Risks and Best Available Strategies for Remediation (2011, background): “…of high metal wastes in improperly protected landﬁlls, leaded gasoline and lead-based paints, land application of fertilizer, animal manures, biosolids (sewage sludge), compost, pesticides, coal combustion residues, petrochemicals, and atmospheric deposition [1, 2, 20] are discussed hereunder.”